Stuck in the arc

Sullivan focuses on one part of Larry Sabato's latest level-headed "Crystal Ball" analysis: that Bush's approval is too low for reelection, and that high turnout favours the Democrat. True enough. But equally pertinent is his analysis of why that approval rating is so low:

A small majority of voters appears to want to replace George Bush in the White House, judging him to be too conservative, too stubborn, and too eager to get the nation involved in dangerous foreign conflicts.

In other words, all of the things which Rove and company counted on to get the president re-elected: his conservative values, resoluteness and taking action in Iraq against the "terrorist threat" -- are exactly those things that are going to ensure he doesn't get reelected. This may be self-evident. But it also reveals a missed potential winning strategy for the president. I think he's shored up his base just fine. If he could have shown a bit of recognition of the faults of his own administration -- admitted in Debate #2 that mistakes have been made -- it would be worth at least a couple of points in the polls. As it stands, the final, winning narrative of this election is this: Bush is unable to see the problems, so he won't be able to deliver the solutions. Kerry and Edwards have been hammering on this theme, and Bush has not and cannot respond, probably because he and his aides believe that to do so would be to reveal weakness. That strategy is, and has been, idiocy, and it will be the reason Bush loses on Nov 2. Some evidence. I'll let the wire services do the talking:

One measure that has changed significantly is the question of which candidate is more honest and trustworthy. Before the debates, Bush won that test by 47 percent to 38 percent.

During the first two debates, though, Kerry hammered at Bush's honesty by linking his upbeat assessments to violence in Iraq or weaker-than-expected job creation. Repeatedly, Kerry not only complained about those issues, but also said that Bush was refusing to be honest with Americans about them.

After the two encounters, voters favored Kerry on the question of honesty 44 percent to 42 percent.

The Gallup poll also said that Bush's approval rating had dropped to 47 percent. Typically, incumbents who have been re-elected had approval numbers of at least 54 percent. The margin of error on the approval rating was plus or minus 3 percentage point.

Mark my words: political scientists and historians will see the turning point as Bush's inability to name any mistakes when asked directly to do so in the second debate. And to deny having made any mistakes does something unlikely -- it pulls back the curtain and makes Bush look like a typical politician, precisely the image he has sought to avoid. That is the narrative, or arc, or whatever you want to call it. And Bush seems unable, and possibly unwilling, to shake it -- all the way back to Crawford.